Cloud services providers (CSP) say that their small and medium-sized business (SMBs) customers are putting hybrid cloud computing on the agenda for 2014.

According to our (unscientific) poll, 87 percent of our readers expect more SMBs this year to adopt hybrid cloud — an outlook aligned with other published research in the market.

For instance, a report released by IT research firm TechNavio revealed that the cloud system management market is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32.51 percent. According to the study, hybrid cloud computing is one of the trends driving this market growth.

“The hybrid approach allows a business to pick and choose from public, private, or on-premise solutions that best suit their individual requirements as an organization,” PACE Technical Services Inc. founding CEO Shael D. Risman told Talkin’ Cloud in an interview.

POLL: Do you believe Microsoft will drive hybrid cloud in 2015 with Identity Manager?

With regards to managed services providers (MSPs) leveraging a hybrid cloud computing strategy, Risman said the following:

“Good MSPs know that the cloud provides some solid, price-effective solutions for many basic SMB business needs like email or simple storage, but they also know that it can also expose their critical LOB applications and data to third party vulnerabilities that leave them with no control.”

If you’re still not a believer of the hybrid cloud approach, take a look at what tech giant Microsoft (MSFT) announced last week in company blog post.

Microsoft suggested that it will drive hybrid cloud computing 2015 with Identity Manager, a product designed to leverage the advantages of its cloud platform Azure to enable hybrid cloud support. The product, though, will not be available to customers and channel partners until the first half of 2015.

Think about this: Do you want to sit around and wait to take advantage of hybrid cloud computing, or do you want to stay ahead of the game by looking into how you can benefit from the hybrid approach now? The choice is yours to make. 

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